Learning and the Authentic Assessment

Imagine yourself with a jeep that has a radiator that needs to be patched before you can get away from a batch of bad guys. All you have in your possession is the standard fare of a jeep and some eggs and water. What do you do? In the 1980s the television show “MacGyver” exposed us to the Richard Dean Anderson character that could, supposedly, use the strangest objects to get out of jams. Not one for guns, MacGyver showed us that the ability to use applied wisdom and a keener intelligence than one’s opponent can be the key to getting out of life or death situations.

In high school most of us took (or are taking) science classes and the like which mixed a combination of traditional lecture and “lab time.” When I took physics in high school, for instance, Mrs. Harriet Howe not only went over the metrics of the solar system with us, she also found a unique way to show us the scale of it by taking us outside with balls of varying sizes and placing each of us with our balls at distances from one another that were proportional to the sizes of the planets and distances between them in our own solar system. Seeing the numbers in a book is something completely aside from seeing the proportional relationships in a real world environment. Of course, this is not a lone example. Surely most (if not all) people reading this must have dissected a frog in their years as a student? Done various experiments with Bunsen burners? Constructed pottery from start to finish in art class?

As we move from being children and being able to acquire knowledge through lecture, to becoming adults and thus becoming more experiential, kinesthetic learners we see the value of the way certain things were taught to us when we were younger. As adults, we wouldn’t imagine learning many things without taking a hands-on approach: From learning new languages to learning to work on the Internet, adults are, by their very nature, hands-on learners.

Why is this?

In educational theory there are contrasting types of learning, or “assessment:” Traditional and authentic. Traditional assessment works such that an isolated skill or retained fact is assessed through testing to evaluate a skill or capability that has been learned. Examples of this are readily available in our experiences: Needing to go through rote memorization of technical specifications or some such so you can recall them at a later date. Real world situations rarely call for this kind of knowledge, however. More often than not our activities call upon multiple disciplines and are a collection of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Relevant, real-world situations are the essence of what authentic assessment is.

I’ll admit: I’m a geek. I may not look the part, but for some reason I have been one to take the seemingly mundane details and remember them for later recollection. In many cases, ever since I was a child I was able to soak up material like a sponge and, despite an improper mental state, recall these details for a situation that called for them. I’ve often been asked why it is I have committed to memory such details of subjects that are often on distant ends of any spectrum. From my youngest years, I’ve ascertained, I determined that various types of knowledge would have relevance someday. Perhaps the situations in my life that I was facing at those times didn’t call for the active use of such things as Planck’s Constant (h=6.626 x 10 -34 joule seconds) or how to conjugate verbs in German, but I always told myself and lived by the notion that “knowledge is power,” and later “there is no knowledge which is not power.” Knowledge became a tool from which to develop skills, both allowing me to derive a sense of self-worth, confidence, and personal power from.

When people inquire about the relevance of the mundane details, I often find a voice in the back of my head telling me to tell the person that I am currently engrossed in conversation with to seek relevance in everything: You never know when it might come in handy.

Maybe you, too, will someday find yourself in the situation that MacGyver found himself in above. First you would need to dump some water in the radiator, jump start the Jeep. This would cause the water to heat up. A few minutes later, you would dump in the egg whites which the water cooks. Once cooked, the egg whites naturally plug the holes in the radiator making the Jeep temporarily usable.

Lightening Crashes

''My wife said the sky was blue, but the lightning bolt was the most horrible sound she had heard in her life,'' said Clemente Vazquez-Bello, owner of the home where Canales and two workers had come to do landscaping.’

You ever get that idea that God (the god or higher-power, omnipotent being of your choice) just has it in for some people?

Quote: Damned if You Do...

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Self-Managed Behavior

"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov

Growth is a constant process; one for which we don’t often have someone directing us. Throughout most of our lives we are forced to take accountability for our behaviors and that growth. Techniques in self-managed growth, from a psychological perspective, can go far in helping us achieve our desired behaviors. Everything in our lives is about the choices that we make. Behaviors are simply the manifestation of those choices. Our behaviors comprise the makeup of our lives and, therefore, we live the life that our behaviors make for us.

1. Choose a target behavior. You must first know that which you desire to change.

2. Recording a baseline. With what frequency do you currently exhibit the behavior which you have or do you have undesired responses each day?

3. Set realistic goals. Set gradual, realistic goals to help you achieve your desired results. The best way to do this is to set daily and weekly goals.

4. Select reinforcing activities. Reward yourself for meeting you daily goals and reward yourself for meeting your weekly goals. Select something that you like and that will keep you motivated!

5. Record your progress. Keep accurate records of the behaviors that you are actually exhibiting and how that matches with your intended goals.

6. Reward successes. Follow through with your reward activities based on your following through with your goals.

7. Adjust your plan. As you learn more about yourself don’t be afraid to adjust your plan to better meet your needs or the needs of your environment.

Keep up the process and continually work at becoming the person that you want to become. Even though this will take some effort, over time your baseline behaviors will change and you will be able to achieve the success that you want!

Unusual Perception

When I first moved to wonderful and beautiful Grand Junction, CO, I chose an occupational route which would not put me in charge of a small army of fast food workers: Though I will do those things which are required of me to keep a paycheck coming in, food on my table, and a roof over my head, I knew that there was something better out there for me. Not that the path which my resultant choice was better, but it didn’t require me to smell like fried foods at the end of the day. I took a job in the wireless industry as a receivables management agent in a call center. It was high-stress with high-turnover, but it was technical in nature and I figured that it was something that would tide me over until the next better thing came along.

Throughout training we learned of many a wireless wonder; after a few weeks of classroom training and a few weeks in what was called Academy Bay— that place where new call center agents take their first calls under the supervision of mentors, themselves seasoned call center staff. Soon thereafter we were assigned to floor teams and started our careers as agents. The thing that we each learned was that customers would likely call us if they were past due on their wireless phone accounts—if they called in for customer service and were past due, the voice recognition phone system would direct them to our department. People who don’t pay their bills (and some that do) have a particular behavior pattern, I quickly learned. A generality it might be, but many an experience it was nonetheless: They can be rude, angry, frustrated, mean, panicky, oblivious, and act quite, quite stupidly. I decided quickly that I wanted into a position that was less “on the floor” and more in a support-style role. My vision became to be promoted. And, in my typical style, do so in a distinguished manner.

In the first two weeks of being on JoNi’s “Team 4,” I achieved the second-highest collections in the call center at $176,000. The person that beat me (by only $4,000) for the top spot was a veteran of about 5 years. The next month I hit number one. I had learned the systems like no other and, in my spare time between calls (something that tends to happen on night shifts) I would memorize the details of policies, procedures, and the best practices of my job role. My time on a call averaged about 3 minutes: I was a one-stop shop for the customers that had better things to do than to stay on a phone after being on hold for (often) several minutes or hours and have them on their way to live the rest of their lives.

Yes, my vision was coming to fruition. Soon I was selected to be part of a team of 5 to travel to another call center and “red hat” for them—assist agents in training for their new posts by offering advice and assistance for them as they need it while they were on the phones. This call center was training some 300 agents to go from the old second generation “TDMA” software systems to the newer third generation “GSM” software. While I wasn’t as much of a whiz on the second generation stuff as some of the old timers, I had come to know the Siebel software that drove the GSM phone systems better than most others. Yes, my vision was coming to fruition.

Around this time I had applied for the Resolutions Support Desk, or the Resolutions Department as it was more formally called, “RSD” or “Rez” was the team of individuals that had distinguished themselves as the best of the best call center agents and been promoted to work in an environment where they would advice other call center representatives on procedural, policy, and technical issues and, as necessary, take an escalated call from a customer. Have you ever called someplace and asked for their supervisor? If you called this company, spoke with the receivables management department, and asked for a supervisor there was about a 1 in 100 chance (by my estimation) that you could talk to me.

Yes, my vision saw me through to being a standard floor agent in a call center to becoming a member of the elite, the special forces of the wireless industry.

Vision: Unusual competence in discernment or perception; something that is or has been seen; a person or thing of extraordinary beauty; or to picture in one’s mind.

The first thing to know about vision is that it is derived from the leader: Vision must be leader-initiated. Vision is a key part in shaping an individual. Without vision, we would not have goals. Without vision, we would not be in positions to strategize our ways from point to point, to end up where we would rather be in life and to become the person that we want to become.

While your vision might be humble and it might be grand, it is always shaped by your paradigm in that your principles, standards, ethics, and morals will guide the vision from start to finish. Your ideal goal is representative of your goals, your ideals, and builds on your past and present. Your vision, in short, moves you forward.

Imagine clearly where you want to be and, given healthy doses of action, you can make your vision come to fruition.

With Self-Discipline Most Anything Is Possible

He’s been called “The American Lion;” a man that stands apart from others in his era as being someone who transformed himself and the time in which he lived. In the late 17^TH century he saw the need to modernize the American Navy. While mourning his first wife he learned to rope and ride in the badlands of what is now North Dakota. During the Spanish-American War he dropped everything and went out west to recruit a ragtag group of cavalrymen from myriad walks of life to fight in Cuba under General Leonard Wood, becoming nothing short of a war hero. This man who had started as a frail boy with physical ailments grew to be some of the finest stock this country has offered. Becoming President of the United States at 43 years old, Theodore Roosevelt is in the elite club of Presidents to win the Nobel Prize.

Years ago I recall watching television; there were a series of commercials discussing virtues that people should have and selling them on the “why.” One featured a judge that said that discipline is the everyday price we pay in place of paying the price of regret. We bathe each day instead of regretting being ridiculed by those around us for smelling and/or looking like we have just woken up; we exercise and eat right so that we won’t become overweight and will feel better; we respect others so that they will, in turn, respect us; we follow the law because we would regret being punished for not obeying it (or, a person is just of virtuous character and believes that the rule of law is there for a reason). Discipline is not just important, it is essential for the leader to practice.

Imagine that you are a member of a military unit in a leadership role: Be that as an officer or a non-commissioned officer. With subordinate troops in your charge, in the face of imminent danger do you confide in your troops your fears, thus validating their own and possibly fomenting more, or do you practice proper discipline and do your duty as their leader and an officer of the public and the commander-in-chief that you serve? The answer is obvious in the context of discipline.

In today’s “instant gratification” society the practice of self-discipline is instead often traded for impulsive behaviors that, instead of leading to success, lead to feeling good now. Proper self-discipline can be what separates a slob from a person that looks and plays the part of the successful individual.

“The one quality which sets one man apart from another—the key which lifts one to every aspiration while others are caught up in the mire of mediocrity—is not talent, formal education, nor intellectual brightness—it is self-discipline…With self-discipline, all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like the impossible dream.”

I couldn’t have articulated it better myself.

Leaders in History: Subutai

Born in Mongolia in 1176 in the Uriangqai tribe, Subutai was the primary military strategist of the great Ghengis Kahn. Not necessarily a man of common knowledge in western society, Subutai has the distinction of conquering the most territory throughout history directing more than 20 campaigns where he would routinely coordinate campaigns up to 500 kilometers apart including the conquering of Poland and Hungary within 2 days of one another. In addition, Subutai was the highest-ranking non-relation to the Khan having begun service to him at the age of 17.

Those who succeed do those things that others do not, such as the leaders that have harnessed their abilities and conquered their circumstances in times past. We look to these leaders to gather insight into those things which we can do differently to find success or further it. Subutai was a man that changed the paradigm of his trade by virtue of his merit and wit.

A story I recall reading about General Subutai once was regarding his siege of a European city. Surrounding the city he faced the decision whether to lay siege to it or to take a more passive approach. Inconspicuously he ordered a column from a rear entrance to the city to be vacated leaving an ample opportunity for any occupants of the city to flee from the city. Uncertain of the situation a small number of troops traversed through the vacated column and escaped the supposed forthcoming slaughter. After the escape of the first few troops, the remainder of the city was vacated through the opening—only to be slaughtered. Instead of using aggressive means to take their goal, Subutai found a method which reduced friendly casualties while the effect of total war was felt on the enemy.

Regardless of the style he used to achieve victory at that siege, Subutai was known for his aptitude and proclivity for using siege equipment and engineers on the battlefield. When most countries outside of China were using siege equipment and engineers for just that—laying sieges to cities—Subutai’s insight into the alternate uses for such combat assets made him become the first individual to use tactical artillery on the battlefield. During the Battle of Mohi Mongolian forces faced the wrath of Hungarian crossbowmen through fierce resistance and a battle that conflicted high levels of Mongolian casualties at a battle for a bridge. Needing to adapt his forces competencies and assets to conquer the situation—and the Hungarians—Subutai ordered stone-throwing catapults to thrust boulders at the banks of crossbowmen, quickly dispatching the threat that they posed to Mongol forces. Moreover, while the crossbowmen defended the bridge they had been ordered to secure with all their might, Subutai ordered an emergency bridge be built so that his forces could outflank his enemies.

Subutai was responsible for conquering the various jurisdictions of Russia and further ventured into Eastern Europe and easily bested many of the military forces there. He sent spies further into Europe and partook in limited military engagements leading to his ambition of taking on the entire Holy Roman Empire in 1241. Unfortunately, by this time, news had made it to the front of the death of the third son of Ghengis Khan, Ogotai. Mongol forces returned to their homeland and Subutai never returned to Europe by the time of his death at 72 years old in 1248. Had he done so, however, the face of western civilization might have changed dramatically.

Valuing wisdom and the application of it to circumstances, Subutai elegantly balanced grace with brute force by gracefully maneuvering his enemies into circumstances where brute force would completely wipe them out: He was a wise leader who controlled circumstances instead of allowing circumstances to control him.

Number One

“Number one is a hard time in the making
Number two is the one plane I'm not taking
Number three goes on one knee for a token
Number four is the short straw but it's broken
I'd give my all just to be number one”
—Chaz Jankel, “Number One”

Anyone with success on their minds has, at one point or another, thought (or fantasized) about being “number one:” That top spot in which you are revered and/or respected as a leader in your particular industry. The interesting thing about number one is that of the people that dream about being there, few achieve it.

Take the story of a young Ph.D. graduate of Berkeley: A brilliant young man that any corporate recruiter would offer anything they could to woo the researcher to their firm. In 1963 the firm of choice was the research powerhouse of Bell Labs. Earlier they had invented such things as the transistor, the laser, and some of the most unique and powerful calculators for their time. Certainly this solid state physics researcher would choose this behemoth to embark on what would likely become a brilliant career there. Instead, he took a risk and joined a lesser-known upstart known as Fairchild Semiconductor. Under the tutelage of a famous man by the name of Gordon Moore, the two would join others just five years later to
form Intel.

In 1987 the Berkeley graduate—Andy Grove—would succeed Gordon Moore as CEO of Intel. Instead of using conventional logic in decision making, however, he embarked, once again, on the road less traveled. Anyone who paid any attention to the computer market through the 1990s knows the “Intel Inside” logo. This campaign catapulted name recognition of Intel into a world that had long perceived other hardware manufacturers such as IBM as “movers and shakers” in the industry—even though Intel supplied more than 80 percent of the world’s microprocessors. In significant part to Grove’s conquest to expose the Intel brand to as many households as possible, Intel is a company worth $35 billion USD.

Wharton School of Business, seeing the merit in the success of these traits of unconventional thinking, creativity, and integrity, sought to identify other business leaders for which success manifested and the criteria that played integral roles in their doing so.

1. Create new and profitable ideas. This is the essential first step in the journey. Rarely does a business leader succeed from something that is not profitable. There are rare exceptions (i.e. Mark Schwartz, former K-Mart President, who bankrupted the company then decided to get a “fresh start” by opening a chain of gas station-convenience stores in South Dakota), but don’t

plan on being one.

2. Affect civic, political or some other social change through achievement in the business and/or economic world. There is a quote that a supervisor I once had displayed in his cubicle; the actual quote escaping me, the general idea was that someone truly great in their particular industry revolutionize and change it. This is true from the paradigms that he implemented in his department (which later would help him attain a promotion to operations manager) to the change that happened with Carly Fiorina merging HP with Compaq computer, creating the largest computer company in the world in the process.

3. Create new business opportunities or exploit existing ones more. “Thinking outside the box” means thinking creatively, critically, and paying close attention to the opportunities that exist from moment to moment not only in your immediate environment, but in your particular market or industry.

4. Cause or influence dramatic change in an organization or industry. Carly Fiorina speaks very thoughtfully and significantly about what goes into the process of such change. Deriving context and perspective from diversity and overcoming the destructiveness of change are just two topics that she discusses in the podcast referenced above.

5. Inspire and transform others. The greatest legacies that the most successful industry leaders leave is that which we leave in the inspiration and transformation of others to continue the great change which you have undertaken in the business of your choice.

So, the choice is yours: Take the path well-trodden and reap the easy reward—the “Bell Labs path”—or be the pathfinder and revolutionize ground that few others dare conquer and reap the potentially greater rewards—the “Intel path.”

Of Narcissists and Heiresses

Once upon a time there was an aspiring young man that made a name for himself by serving in the New Mexico legislature in his early 20s. Later, he would serve in the U.S. Army as an officer. He purchased a hotel and formed it into a chain that has become renowned the world round: The Hilton Hotel Corporation. Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Sr. begot Barron Hilton, Barron begot Richard, and Richard begot a girl named Paris.

Once upon a time the young hotel heiress got into trouble for driving while under the influence of alcohol and got her license suspended. Not much longer later she was caught driving—without a license. She would eventually go to jail and serve a few days before being discharged for “undisclosed medical reasons.” This has been disclosed as being anything from a rash to suicidal tendencies. Why discuss Paris Hilton in the context of these writings? Paris Hilton possesses traits that are representative of narcissism.

Pretty much everyone has some narcissistic traits: Conceited, argumentative, selfish, etc; but what is required to make them a part of a disorder is for them to arrange themselves into particular patterns of behavior. Narcissism 101 defines a narcissist as someone who exhibits 5 of the following 9 traits:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

4. Requires excessive admiration.

5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.

6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.

7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

The narcissist is one who will, generally, be without empathy, compassion, and remorse—typical signs of a psychopath, in fact. Regardless of this correlation between behaviors, narcissists are not necessarily psychopaths. Those with sociopathic/anti-social personality disorders are apt to have an enhanced lack of empathy and less impulse control. In their book Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Theodore Millon, Carrie M. Millon, Sarah Meagher, Seth Grossman, and Rowena Ramnath say of some narcissists that they "incorporate moral values into their exaggerated sense of superiority. Here, moral laxity is seen (by the narcissist) as evidence of inferiority and it is those who are unable to remain morally pure who are looked upon with contempt." Whereas individuals with anti-social or dissocial personality disorders calculate and pre-meditate their actions, narcissists are more ignorant and apathetic of those around them.

What is the best way to deal with a narcissist? Don’t. By their very nature, a narcissists’ self-worth is drawn from their maladaptive behaviors, enablers will nurture these behaviors and thus continue through the cycle of the narcissistic behavior. The value of not associating with this type of person is not being drawn into their reality of a world that revolves around them.

Of Losses, Gains, and Winning

I’ve recently encountered a dilemma. In my apartment complex there are rules regarding what sorts of things can be out on the public areas of the tenets’ balconies. The property manager asked me to remove my grill from this balcony for reasons extending from the terms in my lease agreement. Being the law- and rules-abiding person that I am I promptly removed the grill from the balcony and placed it inside my apartment. In the days following I began to notice that others still had their grills outside their apartments in the same fashion that mine was. Furthermore one of my neighbors had their bicycles in a precarious position that has always been in the way of me, especially when I would be bringing something like grocery bags or a large package up the stairs. To my dismay I perceived this as a loss for myself and a gain for others.

This phenomenon has, in fact, been quantified by psychologists. One person’s loss must be made up by a gain of 2.5 times that loss in order to get over the loss, perceived or real. In other words, people are more displeased by a loss than they are over a comparable gain: In America, at least, we typically need to offset an unexpected loss by a gain of 2.5 times that loss. In my example above I was particularly observant of the plight of those around me after my loss was realized looking to see if the loss was a shared one. I fully expect the enforcement of laws to be fair and equitable in their enforcement. Not seeing this, my perception was that the loss was unbalanced and unfair. Of course, life isn’t fair, but this doesn’t preclude the quantifiable perception of loss.

Take politics, for example. In American politics there are a finite number of ideologies: Conservative, liberal, libertarian, independent, so on and so forth. When their affiliated parties do not enact the laws and policies which they think will improve society frustration is often had. Take the polarizing issues of our day: The War on Terrorism, immigration, abortion—they polarize the American public largely because the politicians are not enacting laws that are congruent with their belief structure and, in their frustration, can allow irrational actions to attack others in differing political affiliations or otherwise do things which tarnish the name and image of their party.

However, every change comes at a price. Improving something for someone will often cause a loss for someone else. Hybrid cars are a big thing right now, allowing for tax credits for those individuals willing and wishing to come up with the tens of thousands of dollars for them. These tax credits, however, come at a price. This “credit” actually becomes a redistribution of taxes in that it needs to be financed through other people being taxed for you to have that credit.

Economists call these “zero-sum games” in which the total net benefit to all of the interacting individuals in the situation adds to zero; each individual only benefits at the expense of others. This is the very nature of tax and economic legislation and, as it turns out, a common theme in our lives, thus the adage “life is not fair,” other people’s gains often come at the expense of our own.

How do we get past this paradigm and make the world a better place? Crafting classic “win-win” scenarios in our interactions with others will shatter this classic paradigm and make things better for everyone else. Win-win games often start with the self-talk phrase “I want to win and I want you to win too.” The easiest and often most effective means of doing this are for you to look at the underlying needs of the situation. By addressing each party’s underlying needs allows you the opportunity to craft solutions acknowledging and valuing those needs rather than denying them. Even when the result isn’t necessarily what everyone would have ideally wanted the process that goes into achieving the result will make each party feel differently about the outcome: Typical results are achieved through simple quantitative processes, such as the zero-sum game; qualitative improvements are made with qualitative improvements in the very process which produces the result.

The changing of this process requires the redirection of your energy. Instead of asking yourself “which is the best solution for me?” replace it with “which is the best solution for you?” Instead of asking yourself “what is my real need here?” ask “what is your real need here?” Instead of making a self-directed value judgment or envisioning a result that you want focus on the value judgment of the other or the envisioning the result of the other person’s desired results.

If you do not know the answers to these questions…perhaps you need to get to know the person better.

One more day!

One more day until the blog is officially back in business. Just got the new computer up and running and still need to get the essentials organized and everything up and running.

Blog Maintenance

I have run into a bit of problems with my computer: Frying a motherboard while recklessly checking on the installation of a card reader. I have ordered a replacement that I expect to have up and running by mid-week. Unfortunately, there will not be extensive posts until then.

I will, however, still try to put something up for Monkey Mondays. I hope.

Hope to be blogging again soon,

Matthew

5 Days of Happiness, Part 5

When the nineteenth century British economist Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations he did so under the auspices that happiness is considered to be the ultimate goal of all economic activity. Greater wealth is not synonymous with increased happiness: I’ve said it before, “money is like oxygen—the more you have of it, the easier it is to breathe.” Through years of evolution of economic thought economics diverged from the study of the mechanics of human happiness and replaced it with those things which were the material requisite to make someone happy. This eventually evolved into the economic concept of utility—“the happiness or satisfaction gained from a good or service.” When choosing between two different things a person is apt to choose the one that maximizes their satisfaction or happiness.

The Greeks had a term Eudemonia: That has been translated into meaning either “happiness” or “human flourishing.” Aristotle knew that Eudemonia was constituted of virtues through the rational activities conducted within a complete life; one of which was friendliness. The “right action” of friendliness is one of the virtues that lead to happiness and, thus, the “highest good.” The by-product of social relationships is our own happiness—not because we do so for our own gain, but because those actions which we partake in are intrinsically good. In other words, in the Aristotelian view happiness is not something that is to be pursued; rather it is something that finds you when you do virtuous things.

Whether or not happiness is something that is meant to be pursued, rather than allowing it to pursue you, is something that you can decide whether or not to take up yourself. The adage “what comes around, goes around” has some meaning to it, however.

Robert Putnam, a political scientist from Harvard University, analyzed the phenomenon of social detachment in his book Bowling Alone. From memberships in various social and civic organizations, to visiting friends and neighbors, to being a part of sports leagues—such as bowling—he illustrates how Americans are only 30-50 percent as connected to one another than we were in the 1950s. Why has this happened? As the individual pursuit of wealth became a higher priority to everyone, we forgot about the emotional attachments that makes the pursuit worthwhile. The sociopolitical climate since the middle of the 20^TH century has been one where apathy of social and moral concerns and the acquisition of wealth have overcome a consciousness of the issues of the larger community and the respect people have for it.

Yes, everyone seems to have an agenda. Some genuinely do it out of a concern for legitimate issues; the remainder of people do it for myriad other reasons. Likewise, some of the issues are genuine and some are not. The analysis of this is outside the scope of this discussion, short of it to be said: Social connectedness has been replaced with social apathy. Respect for thy neighbor has been replaced with apathy for everyone around me but those I favor. The virtues of community and civic pride have been vanishing with a Machiavellian drive for the goal…

…When, in fact, the goal is right under our noses and most are not able or don’t care to fathom it.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 4

The philosopher Voltaire once said “The art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease.” Certainly modern medicine has advanced since the days of Voltaire to the point to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the very act of laughing relaxes us and reduces our exposure to problems associated with high blood pressure, strokes, arthritis, and ulcers. Because research has suggested that distressing emotions such as stress, anger, and depression can lead to heart disease, laughter can help alleviate these emotions and hedge against heart disease.

Furthermore, the benefits of humor reflect in social situations. Researcher Fabio Sala, part of the Hay Group, found that executives who used humor more than their counterparts were perceived better, using humor 17.8 times per hour; whereas it was found that executives who were ranked average used humor 7.5 times per hour. While positive and neutral humor was the most used, some negative humor was used also. Humor can also be seen to have benefits in negotiation situations.

The average child laughs about 300 times per day: How many adults do you know that laugh this much in every 24-hour period? In a work environment that is in constant change for most of us, humor can be wonderful, a force-multiplying phenomena in our work lives. When I worked in the wireless industry as a supervisor/analyst in receivables management we dealt with a high stress load mostly because we handled customers who escalated because they were displeased with their situation, the customer service representative which they were working with, or something else. The team that I was on that dealt with these situations with a humorous approach: While often a cynical one it was a differential that helped us keep our sanity after being constantly abused by irrational customers complaining about some aspect of their wireless service.

Echoes of this can be found in most every workplace environment. A successful leader in any of these environments is able to keep the humor with them while spreading humor with others. Not only will this offer you the opportunity to be held in high regards by your peers and others, it will also help to offer a rounded edge to what could be otherwise stressful situations.

Some people will go through their lives living with the understanding that happiness is the end result when, rather, happiness is the means to the end that you seek. Imagine the man or woman that is constantly, in a Machiavellian sort of way, striving for that little piece of happiness. We sacrifice those things which we have today, here and now, for that piece of a pie that we want to have tomorrow: Expensing the moment for the promise of something tomorrow. Allow happiness to be your method for achieving those things in life you get. Studies have consistently shown that happy people are more apt to be successful. Happiness begets success; success does not necessarily beget happiness.

How do you become happier? Here are a few pointers:

• Learn to balance work and play. Maybe you are a person who lives to work; maybe you’re a person who works to live. Either way, there are activities which we each would describe as work or play. With things in moderation, the successful individual learns to balance work and play. There are caveats and exceptions to this rule; Donald Trump believes that if you are in the right line of work “play” is not necessary
  
  
• You can only spread yourself so thin before you’re no good for yourself or anyone else. Knowing your limits and pushing yourself enough past those limits that you don’t cause damage is integral. Successful people are often integral parts to other people’s lives, organizations and the like: If you commit yourself too much you are risking that you will be able to contribute less to those things and people that you value—and those people and things that value you.
  
  
• Laugh and smile more. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the world. Remember that it takes 37 muscles to frown and 22 muscles to smile. Smiling is much easier and much more beneficial.
  
  
• Surround yourself with people who are positive. Negative people can’t necessarily bring you down, but having negative influences contribute in your life can only, ultimately cause you to take on those negative aspects of their influence as well. “Birds of a feather flock together.”
  
  
• If you are someone who tends to bottle emotions up, not get things out into the open, avoids issues, or has problems letting your thoughts and feelings be known, learn to practice self-assertion techniques. Sooner or later not asserting yourself will catch up with you and you will be prevented from growth and progress.
  
  
• Learn to relax and cope. While happiness can bring with it traits of self confidence and such, emotions such as panic and despair will not. When things get to be too much: Relax; because a situation can only best you if you allow it to do so.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 3

Esteem is one of those terms whose meaning is not very concrete to most people. It is a term with a definition that can be very relative to each individual. Wikipedia, however, defines esteem as “a favorable appraisal of a person who possesses qualities estimated as of significant value.” To this end it labels two distinct types of esteem: Respect and recognition by others and self-respect.

Think of a person in your life whom you have good faith in as being competent, has integrity, perhaps they have complementary moral values and ideals close to your own, and having your trust. These are all components of a respected individual. Respect is a great thing in that it adds general reliability to social interactions, enriching them and making them more efficient and effective as it allows individuals to work in groups, adding a complementary nature to them. This can only be built by a person partaking in acts that are generally considered good and beneficial to those whom hold the respected person in such high regard. Once these requirements are met respect can be earned.

The benefits of having respect among members of a group or team are force-multiplying—useful for hierarchical and peer relationships in that environments of mutual respect often lead to dramatic increases in progress and productivity, especially when it is recognized by all parties.

By having large social networks a person has a greater opportunity to be recognized for your respectable deeds, integrity, and complementary nature to others. Earning respect with others means building esteem. Being held in high esteem by others fulfills the esteem need set by Maslow…mostly.

The other half of esteem is self-respect. Theologian Abraham Herschel once said “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” Respecting oneself boils down to accepting oneself: Holding yourself in regards enough that you accept who you are for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Self-respect is not necessarily contingent on success, because life will bring failures with it. Research conducted by Dr. Ellen J. Langer, Judith White, and Johnny Walsch, of Harvard University suggests that self-respect allows people the advantages of being less prone to blame, guilt, regret, lies, secrets and stress.

When I was younger my family moved more than most: Three different towns by the time I graduated high school. In the third grade I was held in high regards by my peers, was accomplished, and felt like I was on top of the world. Then my family moved. Again, I made the investment and gained much of what I had back—probably more; just in a different place. By the time we made the next move two grades later I wasn’t so apt to make the investment: Sooner or later it would all end up the same. This was the time in my life, however, where I entered the “trying too hard” phase. I answered every question, laughed a bit too much perhaps, and went that extra mile. Evidently this did not bode well with my peers in this new place. My confidence decreased, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. What was happening inside my head started dictating what was happening in my world.

It wasn’t until I dug deep inside, found my core competencies as an individual, and gained self-esteem from them by expressing myself through various outlets in which I could derive self-worth. The better I felt about myself, the better my world became: The more those around me began to hold me in higher regards.

The truest happiness comes from inside ourselves: The happier we are, the more the world around us notices it. Happiness is not just the feeling that we want to achieve (at least in a periodic basis), but it is something that begets success.

Just a Note

I'm planning on finalizing the social bookmarking code by next week. Right now, I am thinking about only doing so for three to five social bookmarking sites.

If you have a favorite or a suggestion, please leave a comment!

5 Days of Happiness, Part 2

Imagine an individual that you admire, respect, and look up to. Likely, when you are faced with a decision you reference this person. Ask yourself: Are they a sociable figure? Are they someone that gets along well with other people? If you get along well with this person chances are that they get along well with other people. Generally, people who are well socially adjusted seek to be an active part of a community in some capacity. They seek to like people and to be liked by them.

After the priorities of “house and health” are met, we seek to belong to a group. Some people can make their way through a room effortlessly socializing with each and every person in the room. Some people struggle with other people. Some people choose to avoid other people for any number of reasons, cynicism among them.

Personality theorist Erik Erikson posed that people go through varying stages throughout their life. In our childhood we go through stages such as the development of trust, seeking autonomy, finding the initiative, striving for becoming industrious, and finding our identity in adolescence. As young adults we are each faced with the struggle between intimacy and isolation: After establishing a stable identity a person develops the need to seek out intimacy in their life. Sharing deeper friendships or meaningful love with others are the evolution of having found your identity—in the sense that you want to share with this with others to shared with you via shared and contrasting experiences. Researchers have found that, in fact, three out of every four college-age men and women rank a good marriage and family life as important goals to attain throughout their adulthood. This need for intimacy is often found to be at odds with isolation in that often people can fail to make meaningful and deep relationships instead forming several unfulfilling, superficial relationships leading an individual to feel alone and uncared for in life, setting the stage for later difficulties in life.

Developing social networks—regardless of their mechanics—is important to everyone and anyone’s happiness. Only through prioritizing and meeting the social need can someone seek to fulfill the need to feel respected and develop a healthy amount of esteem.

The easiest way to develop those social connections I like to compare to melting an ice cube: All other things being equal, an ice cube that is a simple block of ice will melt more slowly than one that is of the same mass but in the form factor of being a sheet; the ice that was a sheet had more surface area to increase the speed with which it melted. Just like the ice cube increasing its surface area, the more a person “increases their surface area” to the rest of the world, the more opportunity they have to make friends. Spend more time doing more things in more social situations.

However, you don’t necessarily wish to hang out in places with people who aren’t necessarily sharing the same ideals, morals, and belief structure as you. Then again, you can spend your time in social situations with people that, as a group, share the same (or similar) ideals as you...or you can spend time in social situations and groups that are things you aspire to. Realistically the best way to go would be a combination of the later two—exposing yourself to social groups that share your ideals as well as those which you aspire to.

When determining which social groups you’d like to belong to keep in mind religious, political, volunteer, humanitarian, and civic organizations. I have a good friend that has chosen to immerse herself in such organizations and, to my observations she is all that more respected and enriched because of it—and she has enriched those around her directly and indirectly.

5 Days of Happiness, Part 1

Anyone who reads this blog at length probably understands that part of my message that I illustrate and narrate with it is to pursuit of success. A component of success that can be overlooked by the overzealous, but is a critical component in the truest of successes is that of happiness. The most successful men and women derive happiness and a sense of self-worth from those things that also bring them enough wealth to make them comfortable.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil:” 1 Timothy 6:10. The acquisition of money and wealth should not be what one loves, for that can lead to greed: Regardless of what Gordon Gecko says, Greed is not good. Money is a tool that should be used for the achieving self-actualization. Dr. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, proposed a theory that contended that as people meet their “basic needs,” they seek to satisfy successively “higher needs.”

1. Physiological Needs: The essentials—food, water, sleep, etc. Anything that aids in your body continuing to breathe and move forward from day to day.

2. Safety Needs: Security, employment, and generally anything that offers you the sense of feeling safe and secure.

3. Social Needs: Everyone needs a sense of belonging—whether to another person, a family, a friend, or an organization—everyone needs to feel like they are part of the larger community.

4. Esteem Needs: Confidence, respect, achievement—When you feel appreciated for those things that you have defined as adding to your self-worth, you are well on your way to achieving the esteem need.

5. Self Actualization: The pinnacle of the hierarchy allows a person to achieve great things.

Dr. Maslow studied individuals that made profound marks on history (ala Albert Einstein) instead of those individuals that had a tendency to be maladapted and a burden on society (“The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”). The first 4 needs are deficiency needs in that they are a priority while—and only while—an individual is on that level. For example, let’s say you are doing great in your life: You are an active member of your community, respected by your peers, and have a family with a house and a white picket fence. All of the sudden this changes when you lose your job. Instead of the person that you were, having met your physiological, safety, social, and esteem needs and well on your way to becoming self-actualized, you are now forced to look for new employment. You might have to worry about keeping the roof over your head and food on your table; these needs that were once far away from being your worries and priorities are now forefront on your radar. As you move up the hierarchy the needs that have been met on one level become less of a priority that what is on your current level of the hierarchy: As the priorities are met on one level, you begin to work towards meeting the priorities on the next level.

A staff sergeant that I once worked with had a view of money that I reference to this day: “Money is like oxygen—the more you have of it, the easier it is to breathe.” Money is not the goal to have for someone who seeks success; rather it is the tool for achieving it. Money helps to meet physiological and safety needs, freeing up your time and other resources towards the priorities of social and esteem needs, on your way to self actualization.

Monkey Mondays: Summing Monkeys

"[Monkeys] can accurately assess which of two behaviours is more likely to bring them a reward by summing together a series of probabilistic clues. And their reasoning is reflected in the firing rate of individual neurons in their brain."

Full Article at New Scientist

Weekend Funnies: Chad Vader Season 1

I recently found this stumbling my way around the Internet. I laughed my butt off. I hope you enjoy, too.

Season 1:

Episode 1


Episode 2


Episode 3


Episode 4


Episode 5


Episode 6


Episode 7


Episode 8

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in…Basic Training, Part 2

Basic Training has historically been a paradigm-shifting, life-changing experience that makes fighters out of people and cultivates the leadership ability within those fighters. Countless leaders throughout history came from the ranks of the military.

I am a man of logic, rational and linear thinking: I take pieces of evidence, investigate, analyze and process, and draw conclusions, insights, and make relationships between varying pieces of data. In this case the evidence is clear: Those things taught throughout military institutions worldwide are a strong basis and foundation for any leader to have. I like to half-jokingly quip that I was the only enlisted soldier in the Army training to become a General. Getting my hands on any information I could from all echelons of knowledge in the armed forces, I internalized it and found ways to enrich my experiences alongside other great passions of mine.

To that end the following are 5 traits that myself and many others have learned throughout Basic Training:

1. Always be prepared: Preparation is the key—whether that means having the right physical tools of the job or the mental preparation for taking on the next mountain in your path, preparation is paramount to the determination of success or failure. Good preparation means having a deep and broad understanding of that which you are about to embark on. Proper preparation allows you to know what your goal is, which result you desire, and how best to adapt to circumstances that are bound to change along the way.

2. Working as a team: Organizations exist to undertake those missions and see through those visions which are too large for individuals to take on. The grandest of missions call for teams to take them on: Whether that means a partnership or a multi-national corporation, working alongside like-minded complementary individuals allows for more to be accomplished. In Basic Training one of the first things that are learned is how to interact like a team: Drill and ceremony. Marching as a team binds a unit together in such a way that actions and intent become uniform, functional, and complement one another towards a unified goal.

3. Conquering personal fears: When someone enlists or is commissioned in the military they are about to start something that is very likely unknown and very foreign to them. I know it was for me. Basic Training forces you to confront many personal fears, especially fear of the unknown. Confronting fears makes you step outside your comfort zone, adapt, and increase the size of that comfort zone. This not only changes how you view the world, it also changes what you can do as a part of it.

4. Plan, prepare, execute: This seemingly simple phrase embodies a lot about what makes the military great in relation to what it means to leadership. Few successes were ever had without a plan. No meaningful success was ever accomplished without proper preparation. No success was ever had without execution. In their book, “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,” authors Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck pose that “the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution.” Indeed, in my experience success has greatly hinged on the ability to execute and the subsequent follow-up.

5. Physical and mental fitness begets success: The biochemistry of a physically fit individual is important to sustain and grow mental fitness within the individual. People who are complacent and idle in their spare time find that their lethargy grows until such time that it consumes and becomes apathy. In Basic Training a day does not go by without physical and mental conditioning taking place. You will find this trait in many great leaders as well. Take a little time each day for physical exercise and something to test your mental prowess: You will find that it is beneficial.

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Everything I Need to Know I Learned in…Basic Training, Part 1

A conversation I had the other day reminded me of something that my drill sergeants would occasionally tell us in Basic Training: If you want to succeed in your military career, do those things which are being taught to you here.

For the uninitiated: Basic Combat Training is the Initial Entrance Training that every enlisted soldier, sailor, airmen and marine entering service is required to go through in the United States and other militaries around the world. It is a process that breaks down portions of a recruit’s personality removing traits that are not constructive to being part of a force entrusted with securing the peace of a freedom-loving nation and building that personality back up into one that prepares a full-fledged combat-ready soldier, sailor, airman or marine to serve.

In his book The Ultimate Basic Training Guidebook, Sergeant Michael Volkin outlines traits that a new recruit should have going into Basic Training:

1. Patience: Pressure is a first-order force to an individual in Basic Training. Pressure from drill sergeants and other cadre, pressure from fellow recruits, and pressure from yourself to name just a few. Just like in the business environment, everyone has a shared purpose: Whether that is to see the business go forward or to learn basic rifle marksmanship, patience is paramount in ensuring that you don’t lose your temper and detract from the necessary goals being accomplished.

2. Stamina: Basic Training time is longer than usual. Time passes by at a gruesomely slow pace throughout the days, weeks, and months of this Initial Entrance Training. My Basic Training Company had 180 graduating individuals after about a handful dropped out; my platoon had 60 soldiers, my squad had 16 troops, my room had 8: After a few weeks you’ve gone through the “who are you, where do you come from,” so on and so forth, and informed everyone about yourself. From there stamina is necessary to make it through the long periods of waiting (“hurry up and wait” was invented by the military) to the stamina necessary to endure the physical and psychological conditions of the entire experience. Methods of coping with the tension are necessary to help you make it through.

3. Honesty: It is the best policy. People lie to hide things or distort situations to make them seem better to others, themselves, or both. Relationships built around honesty are the best and the strongest over time—especially when it comes to your battle buddies in basic training. Furthermore, being caught in a lie by a drill sergeant will only go to degrade any confidence your leaders have in you. Honesty is absolutely the best policy and the only policy.

4. Submissiveness: Leaders need to learn how to follow as much as they need to be able to lead. Basic Training has no room for recruits with egos and entrenched pride. As it is in life as in Basic Training, if you are far too stubborn with your ego and pride someone else—in the case of Basic Training this means a drill sergeant—will do it for you.

5. Generosity: In Basic Training you will not succeed without some help from your battle buddies. In life you will not succeed without some help from your friends, your colleagues and others in your life. It is a principle that has existed in texts from multiple sources from multiple perspectives throughout all of recorded history: What comes around goes around.

In the next post in this set I’ll go over those pieces of wisdom-for-success that are learned through the experience in Basic Training.

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